Leighton Moss

Marsh harrier

After another bad night's sleep I couldn't decide which of the various day's birdwatching options to choose and pretty much sleep-walked into heading off to Leighton Moss on a very gloomy day to see if I could add the female ring-necked duck that arrived last night to the year list. The first conscious acknowledgement that this is what I had decided to do was when I heard myself asking the chap at reception: "Is the duck still here?" Which is one of the more redundant questions to be asked at Leighton Moss. The chap took pity on a befuddled old man and said yes, it was still here.

The view from the Sky Tower, looking westwards. Patches of the reedbed are cleared each Winter to generate fresh young reed growth so that there is a variety of habitats and to stop the reserve drying out and becoming entirely willow scrub. This year it was the turn of the stretch along the main drain between Lilian's pool and the bridge.

The duck had been reported as showing well at Lilian's Hide. I didn't fancy joining a crowd in the hide so tried my luck finding it from the Sky Tower which overlooks the same pool. There were plenty of mallards, shovelers and teal around the pool margins and in the channels of the newly-opened stretch of reedbed along the main drain. Out on the water there were dozens of coots, gadwalls and tufted ducks, a few very noisy black-headed gulls and a female goldeneye. I worked my way through the rafts of tufted ducks and had no joy, so headed for the hide.

Ring-necked duck (centre) and gadwalls

There was a couple of dozen people in the hide, which is very busy but not excessively so. The ring-necked duck was surprisingly easy to spot in a small group of coots and gadwall on part of the pool you can't see from the tower because of the trees. She was very active, spending more time underwater than atop, and steamed across the water at a rate of knots, easily outpacing the other waterfowl. I spent a while reminding myself of the ID features — the more female pochard-like plumage compared to the tufties, the long beak and the peaked shape of the back of her otherwise rounded head — and took a few unsatisfactory record photos through the glass window and toddled off. I'm never comfortable in a busy hide, the more so since the pandemic hit.

Willows on the way to the Griesdale Hide 

The reedbeds were surprisingly quiet of birds given that there weren't many people walking about. The closest to the usual mixed tit flocks were a pair of great tits and a blue tit. Even the robins weren't about. Overhead there was a steady, though thin, traffic of passing black-headed gulls and the occasional small party of greylags.

Pink-footed geese

Mallards and teal

The pintails, mallards and teal were still on at Tim Jackson's. There was no sign of the hybrid shoveler today, his place being taken by a pair of wigeon. The noise from a shooting party at Paint Mine Woods spooked the geese off the nearby marsh, dozens of greylags flying into the reserve towards the causeway, hundreds of pink-footed geese flying out into the salt marsh.

Coot and snipe

The usual view of a pintail

Things were more leisurely at Griesdale's with teal, coots and mallards dotted around in small groups and snipe quietly dozing in the reeds. All this changed suddenly when a male marsh harrier came floating in, giving brilliant views from the hide for a few minutes before drifting round and back towards the causeway.

Marsh harrier

Marsh harrier

The walk back out through the reedbeds was almost as quiet as the walk in. Every so often noisy parties of greylags flew low overhead back to the marsh.

Greylags, Griesdale Wood in the background 

 I thought I was going to have no luck with marsh tits today until I bumped into a pair back at the visitor centre. All the mixed tit flocks appeared to have congregated at Silverdale Station, the bushes and trees were very busy while I waited for the train back. 

Despite it still only being mid-afternoon and my having a ticket that made the Western half of the Northern Rail network my oyster I went straight home, I was too tired to do otherwise. I'd had a couple of hours'walking round and for all that it seemed quiet and I was dozy I'd recorded 41 species of bird on the visit so I hadn't done too badly.